Camp Verde’s baseball team has enjoyed a lot of success in the last two seasons, reaching the state semifinals in 2019 and going 3-0 during 2020’s abbreviated season. If the Cowboys are going to have another successful season, it will be with a lot of new faces.
While those last two teams were experienced, this year’s team is not. When Camp Verde opens its regular season on Wednesday, March 22, with a 3:45 p.m. home game against Payson, it will be the first career high school varsity game for every player on the team except senior utility man Peyton Kelley, senior pitcher/infielder Mason Rayburn and junior catcher/infielder Cole Gillespie.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do offensively and defensively in the outfield and behind the plate,” coach Will Davis said. “We’re just young. We’ve only got three guys who have played a varsity game in their lives.”
The good news for the Cowboys is that the strength of the team is its pitching. So, even if the bats are struggling, Camp Verde should be competitive in most of its games.
Also, while the team is filled with underclassmen, the early work ethic and skill those young players have shown has caught the eye of the team’s more experienced players.
“Everyone on the team is respectful — they know what they’re doing,” Kelley said. “It’s a young team. But I think if we practice more and keep working at it, we’ll get better.”
“I just got back from basketball but from what I can see, it’s a young team but they seem like a lot of good-hearted people,” added Rayburn. “They’re going to improve. They’re going to listen when you say something. It’s a good group of kids.”
The team that took the field for Camp Verde in 2020 would have had a legitimate chance to make a run at a state title. While nobody on this 2021 team would turn that down if offered to them, having a younger team has tempered the expectations somewhat.
But for Davis, the day-to-day goals haven’t changed.
“The team goals are always the same,” he said. “To improve every day. For every player to improve and to improve as a team. And obviously to start the season off with the regular goals that you always have, to come to every game, play hard and try to win it. If you don’t, no big deal. But you come into the game with that intent.
“You come into the region with the intent to win the region,” Davis added. “Those two goals haven’t changed by any means. Do I expect that we’re going to reach those? Probably not. But we’re going to work hard at it. We’re going to get the first two, for sure.”
One of the bonuses of this season is that the Arizona Interscholastic Association is allowing fans to attend spring sporting events, although masks and social distancing will still be required. And as the Cowboys are a young team, anyone taking in a Camp Verde game can get used to seeing the same players they’ll see for the next 2 to 3 years on the diamond.
The Cowboys that are on this year’s team hope to see fans out at their games. The fans that do attend will see players who take the responsibility of representing themselves and their town seriously.
“We’re a team — we’re all brothers,” Gillespie said. “Everybody has got each other’s back and we represent Camp Verde.”
